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13 Feb 2012

With Valentines Day fast approaching I've found myself in a bit of a tizzy. So much to do with so little time to do it, running two businesses while trying to maintain a blog and a social life can be quite the task sometimes. When I was contacted by the lovely Ben from Blend about creating a recipe to celebrate the upcoming release of Katie Fforde's new book A Recipe for Love my first reaction was Eeeeek!! Valentines is in three days and I've got to find time to bake up something sumptuous! Then I got to thinking, so many of us run such hectic lives; wouldn't it be great to be able to bake something delicious in no time at all? So I did, and it was fabulous! Not only does it look like something you could pick up in your local French Patisserie but it's so super simple to make, anyone could do it.

I already had a batch of sweet pastry chilling in the fridge from a past endeavour but if you don't feel like making your own you can always use store bought, just makes things that much quicker.

Chocolate Raspberry Tart

Ingredients:

375g ready rolled desert pastry

250g raspberries

1tbsp caster sugar

200g good quality dark chocolate250ml double cream

50g butter

30g liquid glucose

Method:

Pre heat your oven to 170C and find a fluted 20cm tart tin.

Unroll your pastry and use to line your tin and trim any ragged edges. Place a circle of baking paper over your pastry and fill with baking beans. Any old dried beans will do if you don't have baking beans. Place tart in the oven for 20 minutes then remove the paper and beans and allow to bake for another 10 minutes. Remove the tart from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Pick out a few of the best looking raspberries and set aside, you'll use these for decoration. Mash the remaining raspberries with the sugar and spread over the base of your cooled tart. Set aside.
In a small saucepan bring the double cream to the boil. Remove the pan from the heat and add your chocolate. Stir to melt slightly then add the butter, piece at a time stirring constantly till melted and smooth. Squirt in the liquid glucose and mix till combined. Pour your ganache over the raspberries making sure you don't over fill the tart. Any left over chocolate can be chilled and used to make chocolate truffles!

Allow the tart to cool and set in the fridge. Serve at room temperature piled high with raspberries and dusted with cocoa!

I have tried this twice but the chocolate keeps splitting :( I let the cream cool down a bit the second time before adding the chocolate, and tried to not overmix it, but there seems to just be too much chocolate. And then it was all too cold to melt the butter. Any advice Katie?